Doggies in the desert and electric bikes

Enemy number one. This plant in the desert is ruining our days. It is called Teddybear cholla. Odd name for something that you cannot touch, let alone HUG.

Pictured here are the plant and the offending little beasties that are likely their way to reproduce.

If you get one stuck to your foot… when you try to pull it out, you will get another barb stuck in your finger.

What happens is that Tucker is walking along, gets one of these in his foot and immediately tries to get it out with his mouth, then he has it stuck in his mouth which is really bad, and he starts thrashing around, LOTS of drool. So then Ken and I swing into action, Ken with his leather mans tool pliers and me holding tucker still.

Hence the booties.

Short video of his first steps in booties…. He got better.

The first day with the booties, although he seemed to do well, he was exhausted for 2 days (only 3 year old dog). We figure that perhaps it was more draining because he does not have a good grip, without his claws being out, so he is working twice has hard to get the same distance. We are now in search of booties with treads on them. OH and we are also spending as much time looking for lost booties than we are for rocks 🙂 Stay tuned for what we find works. Tucker is back to normal after 2 days of sleeping.

Last year we were limited as to the sites we could get to because our motorhome is not exactly an all terrain vehicle, MORE OF A one terrain vehicle, pavement and VERY good gravel roads. (last year we did damage to the motorhome (TAJ)….. by going where we should not have gone ) So to solve this we though through many possible options, like hauling another vehicle, but were not ready to do that. SO a friend suggested Electric bikes, and we said YES…..which we have recently purchased.

Two ways to describe electric bikes, one is like a small motorcycle that has an electric motor that you can pedal to save electricity.

The other way to describe them is they are a mountain bike that has less gears and a pedal assist engine for you get bogged down in the sand.

Sorry no action shots….. just this one picture of one of the fat tire bikes

Last year we attempted to ride our bikes to some of these remote spots, but it was very tough riding through the sand, especially uphill…….. and with rocks. So we have bought heavy duty mountain bikes with fat tires that can ride over very large rocks no problem. I am pretty much of a fraidy cat mountain biker and pretty much bail whenever i get into any scary situation. With this motor (and the HUGE TIRES), I just push the throttle and ZOOM over obstacles. Ken is pretty amazed at the terrain I am riding in no problem. I have only fallen twice and I have to admit that ONE TIME … was because I noticed a nice rock on the side and was not paying attention. (Paying attention is a bit important).

The other really cool thing about the bikes is that if you are a lousy biker like me and struggle to get started on an uphill with loose gravel, I just push on the throttle, and ZOOM. Another important thing about the bikes is that they have VERY VERY good disc brakes. We bought the bikes in Canada and the electric bike rebuild Kit in the US, and Ken put it all together. Saved a lot of money by him doing this part himself, and also he knows all about the workings when things need to be adjusted.

I would have to say that the electric part was as important as the fat tire part to make these bikes perfect for driving in the desert.

I do not have many GB left on my plan, so only a few pictures this time